Danya Braunstein is a Registered Psychologist, Researcher and Media Consultant.

Danya provides psychological counselling, coaching and assessments for adults and adolescents, supervision for psychologists-in-training, and professional consultation to organisations. Danya works primarily in assisting people who work within
the media and entertainment industries, and those experiencing problems as a result of their screen-based media and
technology use.

Her clinical experience includes working with adult
patients in a private psychiatric clinic, counselling adolescents in private
practice, and conducting psychological assessments for both therapeutic and
organisational purposes. Danya has worked for a number of years facilitating
group therapy programs, and has experience working with individuals in brief
intervention and long-term therapy modalities.

Danya has conducted experimental research into cyberbullying and aggression,
evaluative research into clinical treatment programs, and contributed to a publication on the effects of media on child development. Coupled with her extensive
experience working in the media, Danya has the ideal background to understand
the complex causes of media-related distress and the impacts on individuals,
families and society. She is currently undertaking research towards a Doctor of Philosophy degree, exploring the influence of media on personality development.

Prior to commencing her own psychological practice, Danya had
extensive experience working in the media for over 10 years, primarily in television
production, and specialised in conducting
in-depth character interviews, storyline development and systems management. This successful media career involved working with
multi-awarded and top rated Australian and International television series, including Australian Idol, The Biggest
Loser Australia, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (UK), films, documentaries and children's programming.

In addition to working in private practice, Danya is a Tutor and former Associate Lecturer at Macquarie University, Sydney Australia, where she taught and supervised research in the Master of Social Health and Counselling program. Prior to this, Danya worked as a Researcher at UNSW Australia within the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), Faculty of Medicine. Danya delivered a financial counselling intervention to support smokers to quit tobacco (FISCALS), and conducted research interviews and infant development assessments for a longitudinal cohort study investigating the impact of parental substance use, including child media use, on infant development and family functioning (Triple B Study: Babies, Bumps and Beyond).

Media Psychology seeks an understanding of how people perceive, interpret, engage with, and respond to a media-rich world. In doing so, media psychologists can identify potential benefits and problems and promote the development of positive media and healthy behaviours.

Media Psychology is a relatively new and emerging field Internationally, and almost unheard of in Australia. To date, there is very little consensus about what "media psychology" actually is. Some researchers and practitioners refer to "media" or "technology" or "the internet", some people think of television or print, but in the current social environment media is everywhere and our interaction with it occurs almost all day every day.

A Media Psychologist is not just a Psychologist who presents psychological information or makes appearances in the media. Media Psychology is understanding the interaction of people and media technologies in the current social context, including traditional media, digital media and online technology.

The goal of Media Psychology is to understand how we engage in media and technologies across our varied social, educational and occupational activities. By using the knowledge of human behaviour, cognitions and emotions which the discipline of Psychology provides, Media Psychologists aim to assist people to function better as individuals, families and within our society.